[SP-F11] I wont let you die (Grandmastering First aid)

[Zandra 0]

Zandra was only one single point from maxing out her healing skill, first aid. If she could finish it soon, she wouldnt only be the best alchemist in Aincrad, she would be the best healer in Aincrad as well. She was looking forward to it. She wouldnt only be able to heal her friends, after doing a special quest with some of her friends she would be able to increase her partys damage output as well. She also had her unique item that would paralyze the complete enemy team. That was almost worth as much as several grand masterings of first aid, since it protected every ally from every enemy. That was specially useful versus several enemys sice you cant use stun at more then one opponent at a time.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Zandra Zvift

[Zandra 0]

Well, if you have stun and AOE combined you could make several opponents unable to do any actions at the same time. But with whip, Zandra lacked on that front since with her whip she had to choose either stun or AOE. Thou she had a pretty lowenergy cost on her stun move. So she would be able to deliver several stuns before she run out of energy. That would help to keep her allies alive for at least a little longer, and hopefully long enough to make them defeat the enemy they are up against. Will it be a floor boss or something weaker, she was still gonna keep all her friends alive, otherwise she wont deserve to be called support at all.

[Zandra 0]

To grandmaster First aid, well to grandmaster any skill, its good to go visit a NPC-grandmaster in that skill. There was pretty obvious that the grandmasters of the different weapon-skills would be around at the figthing arenas. Probably other combat specific masters would be there too. The sneak and hide was probably at some dark inn where mostly thiefs and other non-honest players was drinking and such. Some other skills that dont have ranks, which means they cant be grandmastered, dosent have any specific place to be thoougth at. They was just picked in a long list of different skills you can spend your skillpoints on.

[Zandra 0]

But she had no idea where and what the grandmaster NPC for her healing-skill first aid could be. As far as she knew, there was no hospitals in Sword art online. That would have been the first place to look, and the most onvious. Other places could be churches. Pristes in different computer and video games was often healers. So then it wouldnt be very unlikely that one of the priests in a church was the grandmaster she needed to meet to max out her first aid support skill. Thats when she remebred about something at a floor that was unlocked not to far ago. It was on the first floor after the beginner floors, number eleven.

[Zandra 0]

On floor eleven there was, in the main settlements, a huge cathedral. And the cathedral was kind of mysterious. Every four hour the bell in the cathedral dinged and the sun changes place. The sunbeams making picture like shines on the ground when it shines thru the windows of coloured glass. She decided that that was the place she was gonna check out, if its worng place, maybe she gonna get any clues to where the right place can be. There is many clues in videogames to different secret areas, or easter eggs as theyre also called. Zandra had always been a big fan of finding easter-eggs in the MMOs she had played back int the real world.

[Zandra 0]

Before she was gonna head out she decided to make a quick clean up in the shop, so she didnt returned and was met by it looking like someone had dropped a bomb in there. During the half hour it took for her, the golden eagle named Zita, sat on one of the beams of the roof and watched Zandra.''You know, it would be nice if you could help out a little Zita.'' the eagle let out a cry, sounding like she agreed. But she didnt moved, she was still sitting there, watching Zandra sorting some of her ingredients on a shelf. She sorted them to be in groups of the same materials. Like the different leafs on one place, different berries on one place and so on.

[Zandra 0]

When she was done she claped her hands to get rid of the dust she had got on her hands.''So, now Im finished with fixing it up here. It looks okay dosent it?'' she said and looked up at the bird. Zita let out a cry, it sounded like 'yeah, its okay'.''Well do it yourself next time if it didnt is good enough.'' she said and stared at her feathered familiar. Thou she couldnt be angry at her for very long. When she looked at her she remebred all happy memories they have together. Her face turned to a big smile.''Well come here now, we have a skill to grandmaster.'' she said to the bird and held out her arm, like for the eagle to sit on.

[Zandra 0]

The eagle skipped to sit on the arm. Instead it palced its claes on Zandras shoulder.''You think its more comfortable there dont you?'' she said. Then she exited the shop and locked the door behind them. When she had walked for about a hundred meters, Zita let out her wings and started to fly instead of sitting and slacking of on Zandras shoulder. Zandra looked up when she lifted, seeing the gracious big bird-predator flying, fluttering its wings, made her heart be filled with courage. Then she started to thinking about her boyfriend Jomei. He had made her feel these kinds of feelings as well. Maybe she would ask if he wanted to follow her?

[Zandra 0]

No, this was her skill that was gonna be grandmastered, she had to do it herself. Dosent mattered how much she wanted to be with her ginger-darling, there is some things you have to do on your own. She reached the grand plaza of floor four, laying in snowfrost town, her feets had made deep footprints in the snow where she had walked. If she had still been using her half plate armour she would have swiped away some of the top layers due to the large and heavy cloak that was attached to it. But now she weared her holy armour of the eagle. It had many revealing spots, and didnt protected as much against hits like her half-plate.

[Zandra 0]

But it was enchanted, so actually it did protect as good as the armour of the northern ice-dragon. She was feeling much prettier in this armour as well. And when she had the skill points to invest in light armour instead of heavy that she had now, she was gonna change the enchantment from it to be a light armour with evasion enchantments. It would fit the look of the amrour as well, since it had feathers pointing out from different places of the metal pieces. Well, she had a spwcifik task to do now, grandmastering the first aid skill, she couldnt go thinking about enchantments on light amrour or investing skill points in other stuffs the first aid.

[Zandra 0]

She entered the teleportation gate on the plaza of snowfrost town. Then she warped up seven floors, to a floor where she havent been before. When she exited the gate, the first thing that she saw was a huge cathedral. It was much bigger then she expected, there could have been like three jumping puzzle fit in there she thougth. One on the outside, one on the inside, and one in the basement. A cthedral of this size must have a basement, where they store all important and secret documents. She was more and more eager to go inside and start her first aid trainging. The golden eagle had lifted from her shoulder when they exited the gate and was now circling above her.

[Zandra 0]

''Zita. You can fly away and play, Im gonna go inside and train. I will call you if I need you or when Im done in there.'' She screamed so the bird could here. Several players looked up when they herd her. But since it wasnt anything that was very interesting they quickly losed interest and returned to what they had been doing before they herd the blackhaired girl scream to a eagle up in the sky. Either way Zita gave a cry as answering she had understand. With its great wings she turned and started flying west. Zandra didnt knew if she saw something there, knew something was there or just took a random direction to explore.

[Zandra 0]

When Zandra no longer could see her familiar she sturned around. Walked to the big wooden gates that was blocking the way to get inside. She tried to open them. But it was hard. She tried with more force, and suddenly they opened. But before she was gonna step inside a blackhaired man blocked her way. He was wearing a priests robe and had his medium-long hair knit up in a ponytail.''Yes, can I help you traveler?'' he said with a much deeper then Zandra expected to come from that mans mouth. It took a few seconds before she had unerstood what the man had just said to her. She shaked her head to snap out of her confusion.

[Zandra 0]

The man stood there in front of her, waiting for her to reply to his question.''O-oh. Yes. Im gonna grandmaster my first aid skill, but I didnt knew where to go. The other skills had pretty obvious places where their trainers should be. But I couldnt figure out where the one for first aid was located. So I thougth I must start somewhere, and I started here.''she asid, hoped the man wouldnt just turned around and close the door without even saying a word, except the 'introduction'-phrase. And for Zandras happiness, he didnt. He asnwered with another question.''What is your current first aid rank traveler?'' 

[Zandra 0]

''My rank at the moment is master first aid. But I only need one more skill point to reavh grandmaster. Do you know where to go?'' The man didnt answered, he just stood there, observing Zandra. After some time he opened his mouth, and he said two words.''Follow me.'' and he turned around and walk inside the cathedral. Zandra that first didnt belived her ears quickly snapped out of t and followed.''Shall I close the ga...'' she said since the man had opened the gate for her so probably not anyone could enter. But before she could finish her sentence, the gate closed all by itself. Well, after all this is a game, its not realy a strange thing with doors open or closing without anyone doing it.

[Zandra 0]

It felt like the cathedral was bigger on the inside then what it looked like form the outside. It was alot to take in. The ceiling was covered with paintings of angelic creatures. Thou different from the ones in the churches in Sweden. But it wasnt less majestic anyways. The man sjowed her to a small door that she wouldnt have seen unless the man havent showed it to him. Well, she maybe had seen it but didnt realy put much focus on it. The man stopped and bringed fourth a key that he pushed into the keyhole. He twirled the key and Zandra herd the mecanism that the lock consisted of was set in movement.

[Zandra 0]

When the door was unlocked, the priest opened the door and stepped t the side. Then he reached a torch to Zandra.''What? Youre not gonna show me the way? I dont know these palces.'' the man shakes his head.''I cant follow you down there. I still have much training to do. Thru this door, only those that have almost fulfilled their training as master healers can enter. Everyone else just cant pass that border.''he said and pointed about an inch inside the door.''Very well then, best I continue on my own. Zandra took a step across the border. Suddenly all sound from the cathedral behind her disapeared.

[Zandra 0]

When she turned around she saw that the doors was on way to close behind her. She was just gonna place her foot beside the door and wall to stop it from closing completly. But she was to late. And when she tried to open the door from the inside, she could make it move even a single milimeter.''Guess ther only is one way then. Forward.'' She turned around again to face the darkness. Now she was happy she had the torch. This would have been so hard to do since she dosent have the night vision skill. She headed forward. After a hundred meters she reaced a spiral stair going downwards. She looked over her shoulder, but she could only see ten meters or so.

[Zandra 0]

Further away was covered in complete darkness. She carefully started to walk down the satir, one step at a time. This was the perfect place for a monster to attack her. She had completly no room to use her whip in here. But it seemed this was a special area for first aid masters, then why would she engage any kind of mobs her then? Or maybe that man was leading her into a trap. She continued walking down the stair, how long was it? She had to walk for almost ten minutes before reaching the bottom. When she was finally there, she entered a room. It was huge. Almost as huge as the cathedral itself. But here there wasnt any angel paintings.

[Zandra 0]

The walls instead was filled with books. More books then she never have seen before in one building. It was completly filled, from floor to roof. And in the roof there was different healing symbols. Zandra had a hard time to take it all in. But after standing there for five minutes like in trance. An old man approached her.''Welcome to the blessed archive. Since youre here, it must mean you wish is to join the ranks of the highest ranked healers in Aincrad?'' the man said, it sounded like he was like three-hundred years old, and he looke like he was as well.''Yes, thats the reason why Im here.''Zandra answered the old man with a serious face.